Enough
by evxdevo
Summary: written for Ace Beth Week [acebethweek./]. college au - Beth, ready to break up with Alison because "I don't love her enough," goes to Cosima for advice.


**Content Warnings: discussion of sex (in vague and awkward terms), mention of sexual situations of socially pressured consent**

_"Humans developed to function in social packs…"_

"_tendency towards collective ideology..."_

"_Over time, culture interacts with genetics."_

Cosima scanned her textbook, surrounded by a sea of binders, notebooks, loose papers, and writing utensils of varying levels of usefulness. She tapped the rhythm of her whirring mind on her leg with one finger.

_Laughter..._

She lifted her eyes from the book and ran the eraser end of a pencil over her lips.

_When we're happy, but also when we're uncomfortable... or surprised._

_Loud, like... a warning, or a signal. Contagious._

She tilted her head to one side.

_Humans developed to function in social packs..._

She drew fireworks in the air, connecting the dots, eyes shut in concentration. A knock at the door made her jump, train of thought broken as her eyes snapped open.

_Who the hell?_ She was not expecting guests of any kind. In fact, she had planned her afternoon around the assumption that she would be left alone, and could therefore adapt the room to her helter-skelter rumination. Alison, she considered, didn't need to knock - it was her room, too, and she had her own key. _Maybe it's Scott_, Cosima thought, _or maybe Delphine?_

She carefully lifted a notebook full of loose papers out of her lap and got to her feet. She stepped gingerly around the mess she'd created and made her way to the door. She peered through the peephole, more out of habit than desire to know who was there before opening the door and finding out anyway.

The person outside was looking down at the ground, but Cosima could see her long brown hair falling down her back - _Alison_. But then the woman looked up, revealing the waves in her hair and lack of bangs, silver earrings glinting in each ear, entirely makeup-less, an uncharacteristic kind of distant look in her eyes. _Beth_. Cosima unlocked the door and stepped back to pull it open.

"Hey, Beth," she said, "Uh, sorry. Alison's not around. In class, I think."

"Yeah, Intro to Psych," Beth replied automatically, then blushed. _Does it seem creepy that I have her schedule memorized?_ She swallowed. "Um, actually, I wanted to talk to you."

Cosima tilted her head. "Oh - yeah, okay." While she certainly considered Beth her friend, it had been a while since they'd actually spent a lot of time together. Especially one-on-one. Usually a group of people, or at least Alison, bridged the slight distance between them.

Cosima opened the door and made a sweeping gesture with her arm as a way of saying "come in." Beth entered and looked around.

"Oh, sorry," Cosima said, stepping over an open textbook and crouching down to stack up her papers. "I was just… you know, science." She gestured vaguely to the ceiling, an attempt to encompass the vast scope of creation with a single word.

"Yeah," said Beth, but she wasn't looking at Cosima. She pulled the door closed behind her. She glanced at Alison's bed and started to move towards it, but then seemed to reconsider, and sat down on Cosima's instead. She looked down at her hands.

"Everything okay?" Cosima said. She got to her feet, having done a fairly dismal job of straightening up her workspace.

Beth didn't answer. She pulled at a hair-tie on her wrist, let it snap back, but softly. Cosima sat down next to her. They stayed there in silence for several long moments, Beth staring down at her hands, Cosima glancing first towards Beth and then away again, over and over.

"I have to break up with Ali."

"What?" Cosima shifted on the bed. Beth looked up at her and their eyes locked.

"I have to. I don't know. It's not working." She curled her fingers together in her lap.

"Really?" Cosima thought back to game nights when Beth and Alison insisted on playing on the same team, parties Beth and Alison had attended as a couple, movie nights when they held hands under the blankets and thought no one could tell - they seemed _happy_ together. She could hear them laughing in the cafeteria, just the other day, about some professor who made a fool of himself trying to set up a powerpoint. She could picture them finishing a run together, Beth slipping an ice cube down Alison's back to make her jump, and Alison retaliating by spraying her girlfriend with her water bottle. Cosima chose her words gently. "How is it not working?"

"I think…" Beth paused, and when she spoke again, her voice sounded like a question. "I think I don't love her?"

Cosima furrowed her brow. "How do you mean?"

"I mean," Beth took a breath. "Last night, we were, uh, kind of, hanging out." She cringed slightly. "And-"

"You were kissing."

"Yeah."

Cosima nodded. "Anyways, you were making out, and then?"

"And she said," Beth fiddled with the hair tie on her wrist. "She said, you know-"

"That she loves you."

"Yeah."

"So what did you say?"

Beth tilted her head away from Cosima, but the red of her neck and ears gave away her blush. "I said, 'I love you, too.'"

"Were you lying?"

"No," Beth responded, "No, we've said it before. And I've said it, and I've meant it, but, you know, this time, it was kind of… different."

Cosima let out an exasperated sigh. "Beth, you're not making any sense."

Beth turned to face her again. "Sorry."

"Okay, well, keep going. How was it different?"

"Because, when she said it, we were - like you said - we were kissing. And…" Her voice trailed off. Cosima resisted the urge to fill in the blank, zipping her lips until Beth spoke again. "And she put her hand up my shirt. You know, like, going for my bra. And that's when she said it." Beth's face burned red.

"And you didn't want her to say it?"

"No." Beth talked in a rush now, fragments of sentences jostled up next to each other, wrestling for space in her head. "I mean, when she said it, I said it back - automatically, you know, 'cause it's true. Usually, I mean. But right then, she had her hand" - Beth gestured to her chest area - "like, on me, when she said it. That's what made her love me enough to say it. And I didn't. I didn't love her any more, I mean, because we were touching like that. It didn't make me love her more. And I didn't want to… do anything. Like at all." By this time, she had turned away from Cosima again. Her hands were tucked under her thighs as she fidgeted, shoulders twisting back and forth, legs swinging off the side of the bed. "I guess I don't love her… like that. I guess I don't _really_ love her. Properly, I mean."

"Beth," Cosima said, placing a hand gingerly on Beth's back. She didn't protest. "You know, you don't have to be ready. You and Alison, you can give it time, before you go there. She won't mind waiting."

"But it's not _like_ that." Beth pulled her hands out from under her thighs. She batted at her legs with the palms of her hands, bouncing on the mattress in frustration, reminiscent of a child getting ready to throw a tantrum. "I never want to- I'll never be 'ready.'"

"What makes you think that?"

Beth looked at Cosima again, face flushed. She shook her head slowly. "You remember, in highschool, I dated that guy? Paul?"

"Yeah, I remember." _He was an asshole_, Cosima thought, but she didn't say it.

"He and I, when we were dating, we had sex. A few times."

"Okay."

"But I never really… wanted to. It was always just him, you know, wanting to. And I didn't want to say no - not _every_ time - so I let him." Beth clenched her fists. "You remember the "cold fish" thing?"

"Yeah." Cosima had nearly forgotten about that. Right after Beth and Paul broke up, she recalled, he spread a rumor around the school - "Elizabeth Childs doesn't know how to have sex. She just lies there - like a _cold fish_." It lasted about two weeks. Brief, but brutal, complete with snide comments in the hallway and callous messages scrawled on post-its stuck to Beth's locker. Most people - Cosima included - assumed that the whole thing was a ploy, an over-exaggeration meant for post-breakup vengeance. But a lot of them - Cosima _not_ included - found it funny anyway. It all blew over eventually, but it stuck with Beth.

"He was telling the truth."

"Oh, come on, dude. It was two years ago."

"No - I mean it. I didn't - I don't - know what to do. At all. I don't like it. I never liked it. I never wanted him to touch me like-" she stammered, "like that. I never wanted to touch him back." She ran a hand through her hair. "But I loved him. I thought I did, anyway. High school and all. He was a dick, I know that now. But back then… I loved him. And he didn't love me back. I was a cold fish. And I couldn't understand why he wouldn't leave. So, I dumped him."

"Good move."

"But now, with Ali, it's the same. I love her, but I don't want to go there with her. At all. I guess I just don't love her _enough_. You know what I mean?"

"No." Cosima said, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth, the same grin that came with finally understanding a complicated puzzle. "No, actually. Beth, I think you love her a lot. Like, really, truly a lot. I think maybe you're asexual." She smiled fully now, eyes shining.

Beth glared. "What, like fungi?" She stood up and rounded on Cosima, blushing furiously. "If I knew you were going to make jokes, I wouldn't have come to you." She started to turn away. Cosima's face fell.

"Oh! No! Nonononono." She reached for Beth's wrist, pulling her back towards the bed. "No, no, no. I wasn't making fun. Asexual - it's a sexual orientation. Like being gay or straight. Please, can you sit back down? I'll explain it." Hesitantly, Beth lowered herself back onto the bed. She sat on the edge like she wanted to be prepared for a quick getaway.

Cosima let go of her wrist. She inhaled deeply and selected her words with care. "Asexuality," she started, "is a range of sexual orientations characterized by lack of sexual desire. It just means… someone who isn't attracted - not sexually - no other people." Beth looked at her.

"A lot of asexual people - but not all of them," Cosima continued, "want romantic relationships, just minus the sex part." She talked with her hands, as though she were trying to form Beth's understanding out of the air like molding clay. "That's kind of what it sounds like to me, your situation."

"I guess." Beth shrugged, still teetering on the edge of the bed. "So, how do I fix it?"

"No, no," Cosima waved one hand in front of her as if erasing Beth's misconstrued ideas, "You don't. You're not broken, okay? Dude, you love Alison; you said so. Just 'cause you don't want in her pants doesn't mean you love her any less, or, god forbid, any less _properly_." She scrunched her face up, as if the idea disgusted her. "It's just how you are. If you want a relationship without sex, you and her just have to work with it. Work it out, I mean."

"She's not gonna like that." Beth frowned.

"Bullshit. You have to talk to her about it. Communication, dude."

"And tell her what? Sorry I'm a fuckin' cold fish?"

"No," Cosima sighed, "Tell her you're not interested in having sex. Tell her what… you know, what you're comfortable with. How far you want to go."

It took Beth a moment to respond. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "I like touching her - hand-holding kind of stuff, you know?" Cosima nodded encouragingly. "And, like, cuddling, I guess." She blushed. "I sound like such a dweeb." She continued, "And I like kissing her. I really do, she kind of smells like-"

Cosima cut her off with a wave of her hand. "TMI, Beth."

"Sorry." Beth took a deep breath. "Oh, god," She put one hand on her forehead and tipped her head back, "Why am I such a freak?" But she was smiling.

"Nah, man." Cosima batted her playfully on the arm, "Not a freak, remember? No more than any of the rest of us, anyway." Beth laughed.

"And not fungi?"

"Not fungi."

Cosima placed her hand on her own knee, palm up, an invitation. _Take it if you want to._ To her surprise, Beth did.

"Thanks," she said, squeezing Cosima's hand, "for helping, I mean." She sighed. "With Paul, it scared me. I was always scared he might... make a move, and I'd have to go along with it. But with Ali... I mean, I _was_ scared, but now..."

"Alison isn't Paul, Beth. She's going to respect you. And she's going to love you even more for being honest."

"I guess so." Beth nodded. "Yeah."

They sat together in silence, each wrapped up in her own thinking. The _click_ of the lock jolted them back to reality as the door swung open. Alison stepped inside, bag slung over her shoulder. She looked first at the remaining clutter on the floor, pursed her lips, then looked up at Cosima, and finally at Beth in surprise.

"Hey, what're you doing with my girlfriend?" Cosima glanced down at her hand, still intertwined with Beth's atop her knee, and quickly released it. She bounced to her feet and took a few steps away from the bed, hands above her head in an exaggerated surrender.

"Sorry, sorry. All yours. We were just taking." Alison squinted at her. "What?" Cosima said, taking mock-offense, "You think I'd actually cheat on Delphine? She's hella hot and _French_." Alison laughed.

Beth stood up and stepped over a textbook to embrace Alison. "Hey," she said, burying her face against Alison's neck. Cosima looked away. After a second, Beth pulled back, hands still on Alison's arms. "Can we talk?"

"Uh, yeah," Alison said, setting down her bag.

"I'm leaving," Cosima said, grabbing her laptop and making for the door. "Have a nice chat." As she pulled the door shut behind her, she gave Beth one last smile, just to say, _You got this_.

**A/N: While I did a good bit of research as I wrote this, I'm not asexual, so please tell me if I got something wrong or said something offensive. Any feedback, sexuality-related or not, positive or negative, is welcome :)**


End file.
